A mixture of posts on computers, photography, cats and holidays. In other words, all the things that interest me most.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Time to polish those crystal balls

In the summer of 2006, The Guardian announced:

Scientists know a lot about how events will unfold...which means that whatever we do, our climate destiny is fixed for the next few decades... Rainfall will decline in the summer and the increased deluges in winter will struggle to replenish thirsty reservoirs because much of the water will run off the baked ground.

The second wet summer in succession has left water levels in many reservoirs at the highest levels seen in recent memory... "It is really exceptional, I've never known it so full at the end of August," he said... Usually you would expect it to be 50 per cent down at this time of year."...In south west England Wimbleball and Burrator reservoirs in Dartmoor are at 100 per cent of their capacity, creating a dramatic waterfall effect as excess water flows over a weir in a storage area.

Sometimes I get the feeling that a Magic 8 ball would be more useful than reading what the mainstream media has to say about the climate's future.

While you're at it, have a read of Christopher Booker's article on the politics behind the IPCC and the "consensus" that climate change is caused by man's activities, particularly related to CO2. Our governments are planning on spending $45 trillion on fighting climate change, but the supporting evidence is being shown to be increasing unreliable, if not purely fictitious.

As an example, the infamous "hockey stick" graph, showing centuries of level temperatures until recent decades when temperatures swing upwards, is a complete fabrication:

When, with great difficulty, they eventually persuaded Mann to hand over his data, it turned out he had built into his programme an algorithm which would produce a hockey stick shape whatever data were fed into it. Even numbers from the phonebook would come out looking like a hockey stick.

...

As it was put by Roger Cohen, a senior US physicist formerly involved with the IPCC process, who long accepted its orthodoxy: "I was appalled at how flimsy the case is. I was also appalled at the behaviour of many of those who helped produce the IPCC reports and by many of those who promote it.

"In particular I am referring to the arrogance, the activities aimed at shutting down debate; the outright fabrications; the mindless defense of bogus science; and the politicisation of the IPCC process and the science process itself."

So next time that you hear how much the government wants to put up taxes to pay for climate change programs, ask yourself what basis they have for doing it.